1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a waste container system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For collecting a wide variety of waste types, hereafter simply referred to as waste, various containers such as baskets, buckets, bins etc. are generally used. Indoors, small metal or plastic containers are usual, which can be lined with bags or sacks. The waste, generally collected loose, is transferred to larger containers, the emptying of which is generally organized by the public waste disposal services. Since large air pockets are often found amongst the waste, the containers frequently overflow; in addition, further shuttle trips by the emptying service are necessary, even if these vehicles are equipped with crushing devices, which can in the end only achieve an inadequate compacting effect.
To remove larger quantities each time in an economical process, the waste in the containers must be compressed beforehand. In this connection, DE-U-7 813 581 describes as an independent unit a compacting plate with a handgrip on the back. This handgrip enables the plate to be pressed into the household waste container without soiling the hands or clothing of the user, which operation is easy enough to accomplish only when the container is full, but then requires considerable bodily strength.
In a pressing device according to DE-A-4 013 107, a pushing lever gear unit can be folded together to conform to the design height of a lifting cylinder, and permits a pressing plate to be extended that can exert greater forces. In addition, lever presses have been proposed, for example, in DE-U-7 737 376 and DE-U-8 706 920, comprising a relatively heavy mechanism that projects quite a large distance. The same applies also to other waste presses, such as described in DE-A-2 419 369. All these devices require oversize and sturdy containers in view of the sometimes very high compression forces.
DE-A-2 446 894 discloses a waste container disposed in a recess, box or the like, and tiltable and removable therefrom, above which container a compactor is located with two motor-driven pairs of pressing rollers, the lower roller gap ejecting crushed cans, for example, into the adjacent container opening. Frequently, however, the receptacle height required by the added pressing mechanism is not available, and this mechanism with its drive unit is furthermore expensive.
Further developments have concentrated on separate collection of different waste types in sorting containers in order to permit material recycling.